常に新しいお客様の体験を見直し続けることの大事さ

Published by Takashi Irie

I'm a designer, father, husband, and house music lover living in the UK. I work as a product designer at Automattic; the people who make WordPress.com, Jetpack, and a whole bunch of cool stuff.
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数日前、私はJohn Maeda氏からScott BelskyのCrafting The First Mile Of Productを紹介された。この記事は昨年に書かれたもので、内容をご存知な方が多いかもしれない。実は私も昨年に読んだのだが、その頃私はプロダクトデザイナーではなく、そしてすぐに活用できる機会を見出せられなかったせいか、多くのブックマークの一つにしかなかった。しかし、今回読み直した際、この記事は私にとても共鳴したので、まだ読まれてない方のために、私にとってのいくつかのハイライトをシェアしたい。

A few days ago, John Maeda introduced me to “Crafting The First Mile of Product” by Scott Belsky. The article was written last year, and many people might already be familiar with its content. I actually read it last year, but I wasn’t a product designer at the time, and because I couldn’t find an opportunity to utilise it right away, it was just one of many bookmarks. However, when I reread it this time the article resonated with me, so I’d like to share some of the highlights for people who haven’t read it yet. In the article, Belsky points out the situation where many producers aren’t continually improving the new user experience. But nowadays, many sites and apps are using various great ideas for new customers such as friendly welcome messages, onboarding, and tutorial guides. Where is the problem?

The problem is that we tend to prioritise solving issues and requests from existing customers over improving the new user experience. Isn’t this a familiar story? This shows how difficult it is to grow a product while keeping it simple. We must keep reviewing the new user experience to make the product useful for a wide range of customers, not only for the people who actively seek out lesser-known products and services.

For example, even if the new user experience is suitable for the Innovators or the Early Adopters, the growth will eventually stop if it’s difficult or unfamiliar for the Early Majority. Belsky says that it is necessary for us to keep in mind that new customers are not always the same. He concludes that it’s important to keep optimising the new user experience for a wide range of customers in order to grow the product continuously.

If you are interested in learning more about this, I’d recommend reading the original article, as Belsky goes more into detail about how people tend to flock to simple products. I tend to think that Inclusive design is designing products that are valuable to as many people as possible. I’d like to design products that are easy for a wide range of customers, not only for specific groups of people, and, because of this, Belsky’s article has become an important bookmark for me. 🌟